ATHEIST Regroup!

[Etter]

ATHEIST Regroup, Announce Exclusive Festival Appearances - Jan. 13, 2006
Seminal technical metal pioneers ATHEIST have regrouped for a run of exclusive live performances.

Guitarist/vocalist Kelly Shaefer has reassembled what is widely considered the band's classic recording lineup (Shaefer, guitarist Rand Burkey, bassist Tony Choy, and drummer Steven Flynn) for two exclusive festival performances; Italy's Evolution Festival and Germany's Wacken Open Air. Shaefer comments, "We're very excited to be able to get back on the stage and play these insane tunes hit the air again the proper way with Flynn, Burkey and Choy. It's going to be very exciting and something not to be missed!"

ATHEIST will take part on Evolution Festival (scheduled for July 16 and 17 in Brescia, Italy) and Wacken Open Air (scheduled for August 3-5 in Schleswig Holstein, Germany). These will be the first in a series of exclusive festival performances announced. Shaefer continues, "We would like to make a great festival run this year and expose as many as possible to the music we lived and died for. Many thanks to the Evolution Festival and Wacken for helping to give many people who never got to see ATHEIST live a chance to see us one last time. This is our chance to make the music we worked so hard to create come alive one last time, and we guarantee that it will not disappoint."

ATHEIST has recently had its wildly-influential catalog (1988's "Piece of Time", 1993's "Elements", and the 1991's legendary "Unquestionable Presence") reissued internationally via Relapse Records. Additionally, "Unquestionable Presence" was recently featured in Decibel magazine as part of its ongoing Hall of Fame feature. The Hall of Fame feature highlights influential and pivotal releases in metal history, and "Unquestionable Presence" joins of ranks of previously profiled classics such as SLAYER's "Reign In Blood", SEPULTURA's "Roots", and AT THE GATES' "Slaughter of the Soul", among others.

http://www.roadrun.com/blabbermouth.net/news.aspx?mode=Article&newsitemID=46783


i've been to Wacken before but the last years i find it to far away but with a band as Atheist on the bill (and Celtic frost & Emperor) i get's really interesting!

 

[Occam's Razor]

Even Atheist won't ever get me to Wacken again. I've been there every year from 97 to 2001 and it has declined ever since. They are only in for the money there, ripping people off and it is way too crowded. Also, I hate German metal fans, though I am one myself .
I hope that Atheist will tour on a smaller scale, but honestly, I do not take this thing very seriously. I am not expecting a new album, let alone something as trailblazing as "Unquestionable Presence". They should leave it at that...three albums, nice legacy...

How did they get their bass player Choy back from that boyband he was said to be in?

 

[Etter]

How did they get their bass player Choy back from that boyband he was said to be in?

And a other strange news, on a dutch forum there was suddenly
Patrick Mameli (Pestilence) saying Choy is also back in his new band and he's looking for a grunter for vocals!? He also got Tymon from Exivious on guitar (great techband with only demo's http://www.exivious.net/ ) and i don't know who's gonna drum on it..

 

[Occam's Razor]

Exivious try to be Cynic desperately...Mameli did so too with Spheres, which people say is a masterpiece...I think it's crap, and so is Pestilence as a tech-band. They were a cool old-school death band, but as pretenders of sophisticated music...not really...

Anyway, Choy was undecided about Atheist and Pestilence back then, so he is apparently today, too. I do not know why everybody wants to have him. _I think he is overrated. When I öisten to the re-issue of "Unquestionable Presence" now. The Patterson bass-parts on the demos are exactly what Choy does on the album...so he is not very much of a player with an own style (even not on "Elements").

 

[Etter]

Exivious try to be Cynic desperately...

that was the 2001 (5 years ago!) demo, he (Tymon) got some new work on his site and that doesn't sound as Cynic alot any more. He's a great guitar player and was influenced by Cynic, to just write his band off because his early demo wouldn't be right. Then you can say that to alot of bands, Dream theater because they sound like old Fates warning, Spiral architect because they sound like Watchtower and Sean Malone because he sounds like Jacco etc.

Mameli did so too with Spheres, which people say is a masterpiece...I think it's crap, and so is Pestilence as a tech-band. They were a cool old-school death band, but as pretenders of sophisticated music...not really...

you can say what you want but in that time it was very sophisticated because nobody mixed jazz with metal that way and Spheres still sounds different then most techmetal bands (they mix more with jazz then with fusion), the only one i know that mix that kinda jazz sound with metal is Ephel duath. Tech is in my eyes not only the amount of notes you can play but also the different ways you can use notes. Meshuggah is also not very hard to play as a guitarist or bass player but i call it tech metal. But maybe we difference in what we see as tech...?

 

[Occam's Razor]

Dream Theater do not sound like FW (nor did they, maybe the Majesty stuff), SA don't sound like WT (at all!) and Malone does not sound like Jaco (only)...and Exivious obviously do not sound like Cynic anymore, as you say. They are undisputably great musicians, but the problwem with the demo was: if you use these harmonized vocals, there will immediately be this Cynic-connection, as hardly any other band utilized them in a death metal context.

I don't know how you differentiate Jazz and Fusion. To me, fusion is the expansion of jazz, basically in a rock context (Miles Davis Bitches Brew is considered as the first fusion record), grown beyond combo jazz, swing, big band, cool or whatever else of the early styles.

Then we have terms like tech and progressive. Technical music need not necessarily be progressive in that it always reinvents itself or is visionary. The same goes for prog as a genre, which is still mostly associated with DT-, FW-rehash and therefore by no means progressive in the sense mentioned above.

Meshuggah may be or have been progressive, but I don't like them.
"Spheres" came out of Mameli's inferiority complex: having toured with Cynic and realized he was a worse musician than them, he wanted to strive for something similar. Interviews confirm this, and it is audible on the record - "Spheres" sounds strained, and that is why I do not like it.
Ephel Duath are cool because they do not pretend to represent anything and just do their own thing with a fuck-off attitude. They do not come across as intellectual or pseudo angry, but their music speaks both of intelligence and aggression. Ephel Duath I like...

 

[Etter]

"Spheres" came out of Mameli's inferiority complex: having toured with Cynic and realized he was a worse musician than them, he wanted to strive for something similar. Interviews confirm this, and it is audible on the record - "Spheres" sounds strained, and that is why I do not like it.
Ephel Duath are cool because they do not pretend to represent anything and just do their own thing with a fuck-off attitude. They do not come across as intellectual or pseudo angry, but their music speaks both of intelligence and aggression. Ephel Duath I like...

Most i can' really say anything about because it's taste but the last part there's a error, Pestilence toured with Cynic after the Spheres cd if i'm right. But your right that Mameli's wanted to be just a tech as Cynic on that album. But you must give him that, that he didn't make a Cynic copy out of his band. And if i read the stuff he's saying on the dutch forum, it looks like he still got some anger problem, if somebody says he's a asshole he react the same say by treating him what i think is kinda childish.. but i still like his music

And back to Choy, you really don't think he's a great bass player? I think he does a great job on the records i heard from him. What do other ppl think of him? (Lars "the bassmaster" maybe?) Maybe i'm such a lousy bass player that i find him pretty tech

 

[Occam's Razor]

Choy is a good player, but he delivers nothing special...good craftsmanship, nothing less - nothing original where you would recognize him immediately from one note he plays...but then, how many players can claim that for themselves? (even if this should be the highest aim for everybody to have one's own tone).

 

[esteban lobos d]

choy might be playing a lot different nowadays (years have passed and never in vain).
may i say more refined?
those pop bands force you to play some tasty basslines.
great basslines are always appreciated.

 

[WithoutJudgementJeremy]

so he is not very much of a player with an own style (even not on "Elements").

That's the biggest load of bullshit I ever read. Elements brought out more of his own style, and if you watched him play it you would realize it more then listening. He has his own style, and he is a great bassist.

 

[Occam's Razor]

I hear a lot of Patterson-styled things on Elements...and Choy is obviously so great a player that he has been on dozens of albums within the last years...

 

[Etter]

I hear a lot of Patterson-styled things on Elements...and Choy is obviously so great a player that he has been on dozens of albums within the last years...

In 2004 Tony Choy was nominated for a Latin Grammy award. He also has reached top 5 on the Billboard charts several times with several acts and himself as a solo artist. Tony Choy still resides in Miami, Florida, where he has a very successful production company by the name of Achoymusic and is also launching his first publishing company by the name of Achoymusic Publishing, licensed by B.M.I. Choy has an endorsement with Californian Zon Guitars [1].

so he proberly sold more albums then most guys with ten albums
just because we don't hear alot of him doesn't mean he's doing nothing..

 

[SupersonicRobotic]

i love the epic internet battles for "music superiority". you fucking cunts follow all the same rules of tonality and try to make it sound like any of this groundbreaking or determined "weak."

fuck off and just enjoy music no matter what the technicality is. id rather hear music from some egalitarian hunter-gatherers instead of some complex, fragmented society of retards who whine on the internet all day about their Dick Metal bands.

"yeah i jacked off to the Cynic CD like 10 years ago before anyone knew about Fusion and Metal combined."

no one cares.

 

[fragility]

Although I don't aim it at anyone here....

Amen! ^ haha

 

[Occam's Razor]

Choy can win ten Latin or Polka awards for all I care, get endorsed by ten instrument manufacturing companies and grow himself a third arm to play...the fact is just I don't like him (musically, as I don't know him personally), and I am by no means a superior human being due to this. Just preferences, opinions and people that cannot deal with them if they vary from their own...

 

[Etter]

i love the epic internet battles for "music superiority". you fucking cunts follow all the same rules of tonality and try to make it sound like any of this groundbreaking or determined "weak."

fuck off and just enjoy music no matter what the technicality is. id rather hear music from some egalitarian hunter-gatherers instead of some complex, fragmented society of retards who whine on the internet all day about their Dick Metal bands.

"yeah i jacked off to the Cynic CD like 10 years ago before anyone knew about Fusion and Metal combined."

no one cares.

if you read the whole i just ask why he doesn't like choy, it's no battle who is more tech or not... more if he does have his own sound. Not all discussions are battle's, some are just interest why ppl think in different ways, to bad you can't see that.